Breakdown Overheats Juvenile Detention Center In City

August 21, 1991|By LYNNE TUOHY; Courant Staff Writer

The 31 children held at the Hartford Juvenile Detention Center Monday night sweated out the tail end of Hurricane Bob -- literally -- after the building's heating system kicked on and remained on throughout the night. The air conditioning system has been broken since Friday.

From about 4 p.m. Monday until midmorning Tuesday, heat blasted into the detention area, said staff members who did not want to be named. They said the temperature in the cellblock area of the detention center hovered between 100 and 105 degrees throughout Monday night.

Children housed at the crowded center were let out of their cells and provided with water whenever they asked for it. Large fans provided some movement of the stifling air. No illnesses were reported, staff members said.

Early Tuesday morning the children were allowed to go to an outdoor, fenced-in basketball court to escape the heat, and an uncharacteristic sight greeted passers-by at the Broad Street center: The windows on the third and fourth floors that make up the detention center were open.

"I think you had at least three unusual things happen in a coincidental fashion," said Robert Cunningham, manager for juvenile detention services statewide.

"You had the air conditioner malfunction on Friday, combined with whatever it was that caused the heating controls to malfunction Monday, combined with the hurricane and breakdown of normal communications throughout the state's phone system."

Cunningham said that efforts to reach the building supervisor were unsuccessful Monday because his phone service was knocked out by the storm. He added that reports to his office suggest the heating malfunction may have been storm-related as well, when an automatic sensor misread the weather conditions and high winds and turned on the heat.

"We were in the middle of a hurricane while all this was going on," Cunningham said. "It still shouldn't have happened."

The climate was made even worse by crowding at the center, which has 24 beds and is double-celled, using mattresses on the floor when population exceeds bed space.

There is no end in sight for the air conditioning malfunction, which has made for uncomfortable conditions on all four floors of the building.

"They expect to have it repaired in a reasonable period of time," Cunningham said. When asked whether that meant some time this week, he replied, "I don't know."